


Rachel, Weeping for her Children

by MDJensen



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I forgot that we have an actual character named Rachel until I'd already chosen the title, Moby Dick References, Please Forgive me, and I didn't feel like changing it, post-10x07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 05:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21489292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MDJensen/pseuds/MDJensen
Summary: In which Danny sleeps on the couch, but Steve does too. Post 10x07.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 100





	Rachel, Weeping for her Children

Danny takes his turn in the shower, and Steve gets into bed—and manages all of a minute before he hauls himself back out again. Sits on the couch instead. Folds over his knees.

His head seems to weigh a thousand pounds, but his good arm can still brace it upright. So that’s fine. He’s slept in worse positions than this.

He’s actually managed to keep his eyes shut for a few minutes when he hears the creak of the bathroom door, and short-strided footsteps approaching.

“Thought I was on the couch.”

“Can’t lie down,” Steve croaks. Doesn’t bother to open his eyes.

“You nauseous?” Danny’s tone is light, and Steve grunts, just to be contrary.

“No. I dunno.”

“Okay,” Danny murmurs. And then there’s the soft sound of fabric on fabric, and the cool weight of the comforter being draped around his body. “Can I sit here?”

Eyes still closed, Steve nods. He’s jostled, just a bit, as Danny sits beside him and adjusts the blanket until it’s around them both.

“You okay like this?”

“Mm.”

“Okay. You could put your head on me, if you want.”

And it’s nice of Danny to offer, but Steve was planning to regardless. The moment that the man seems to have settled, he drapes against him, going slack. Wrapped in the comforter, Danny solid and warm and bracing him, he feels calmer than he has in two months now.

He sleeps.

*

He wakes.

He hasn’t been remembering these new dreams, now that Doris is actually gone, but they leave him as wretched as ever. Sticky with sweat, itchy like he’s put his skin on wrong. And _shaking_.

It’s objectively chilly in the hotel room, but not enough to justify the violence of the shivering that’s laid claim to his entire body.

“Steve?”

Something spasms inside him, and for a second he’s sure he’ll puke in Danny’s lap. He swallows, hard.

“You awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad dream?”

“’m cold,” Steve gasps, pressing even closer. His teeth aren’t full-on chattering, but they clack together a little if he doesn’t consciously stop them from doing so.

“Okay.” Danny rubs his arm like he can flatten out the goosebumps, warm Steve up in reverse. “Hey, go stand in the shower.”

“Jus’ took one.”

“Just to warm up. You want me to turn it on for you?”

Finally the world is starting to slot back into place, leaving him miserable but no longer disoriented. “No,” Steve whispers, dragging himself upright. “Go back to sleep.”

“Be right here,” Danny replies, which doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll stay awake, though Steve hopes that he does. “Don’t burn yourself, please.”

Steve just grunts.

The first few steps are difficult, the arches of his feet tight and sore. He winces, limps, glad Danny won’t see this in the dark. In the bathroom he turns the shower on, almost but not quite as hot as it will go; at the promise of warmth, his body shakes worse than ever. Finally he steps in, huddles under the spray.

He’s always found comfort in water. Swimming, floating, sitting out by the waves—even running his hands under the stream of the sink. Is that why Doris read him the stories that she read him? Or were those stories themselves the reason?

He uncurls, just a little, just enough to turn the shower knob those last few millimeters to the left. And okay, fine, Danny was right. The water feels good. It warms him up better than anything else could have, and in just a few minutes the shivering has ended, and he stands upright and runs his fingers down the steamed-up tiles. And thinks some more, about water, about Mom.

It’s not just anybody who’d choose to read _Moby Dick_ to their six-year-old, but that was Doris. And it’s not just any six-year-old who’d love it, but, hey, that was him. A celebration of the sea and a condemnation of everything else.

At one point in the story, the Pequod crosses paths with a ship called the Rachel. Its captain’s son’s boat is lost at sea, but Ahab refuses to lend his own time to the search. He forges on, after his whale. And the Rachel limps away, already mourning.

_But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not._

But Doris was, of course, not Rachel. Maybe Ahab, maybe the whale itself, but never Rachel.

Steve’s fingers trace through the steam again and again, as tears even hotter than the water cut silently down his cheeks.

There’s still no comfort in them.

A long while later, he rouses, turns the water off; at the very least, he isn’t cold anymore. He dries off, struggles back into his clothes and sling. This done, he barely has the strength to drag himself back to the sofa, collapse against Danny in a pile of limbs. His breath comes in gasps. Danny rouses and sleepily enfolds him, and Steve wonders how hard he’d have to try to just disappear into Danny’s arms.

Danny buries them once again in the comforter. Then he goes still, and Steve thinks that maybe he’s fallen back asleep, until Danny snuffles quietly. “In there forever. You burn yourself?”

“I didn’t scald myself,” Steve mumbles, not letting it pass uncorrected this time. He wonders if that means that he feels better.

Danny must think so, because he laughs. “The things you know, and then you still use the wrong _there_ when you text.”

“I don’t.”

“Not every time. But it happens. I take screenshots, I’ll show you later.”

But that’s all the normalcy that Steve has the strength for, and Danny seems to realize, because he hugs him close again. Steve buries his face in Danny’s shoulder. Dry sobs come, then, to match the silent tears from before; and Steve wonders dizzily if managing to put both halves together might actually yield some relief.

“Hey, that’s okay,” Danny whispers. Scrubs his hands over Steve’s back; nuzzles, breath warm, against Steve’s hair. “That’s okay, babe.”

But it’s not, of course.

It’s really fucking not.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have two more post-10x07 fics in the works, both of which are a bit longer and more plotful, but this one just wanted to be written first. So here we are.
> 
> PS: please tell me that I'm not the only one irrationally angry about the timeline fuckery involved in this episode? The only way to actually resolve it without ignoring any episodes is to put a ten-month gap between Halloween/Max's return and the flashbacks in 10x07. Assuming that the show has not jumped ahead to late 2020, you've pretty much got to ignore Halloween/Max. And yes, I understand it's just a TV show, but I am really obsessed with clean timelines, so. I'm annoyed.


End file.
